


Things Unsaid

by buttered_onions



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: BB-8 is the best, Missing Scene, Multi, more of a friendship at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5890126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttered_onions/pseuds/buttered_onions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Finn doesn't show up at the victory party, Poe goes looking for him. </p><p>Poe's always looking out for people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> My dear friend [itachitachi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/itachitachi/pseuds/itachitachi) beta'd this for me. She is the best human being ever. <3
> 
> I had 50000 other things to say but now I can't remember a single one. Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT 2/7: Replaced a few dropped words :D Now with complete sentences everywhere!

When Finn doesn’t show up at the victory party, Poe goes looking for him.

He excuses himself from the party, just kicking up again now that the older folks have gone to bed. Details of their victory against Starkiller Base are present in the Bar, surely, but nobody is talking much of negatives. Still, Finn should have been there. He had to have made it back. It was unfathomable to Poe that someone so tenacious as to escape the First Order a first time could have failed a second.

Finn isn’t in the hanger. He hasn’t been assigned a bunk. The control room is quiet, only a few unlucky workers maintaining the watch. BB-8 beeps again at the silent blue-and-white droid in the corner, but follows when Poe calls it away. There’s one more place to look, but Poe had kind of hoped he wouldn’t have to.

The med-center has always been a place of reluctant mystery, not something to be afraid of, but of efficient frustration and endless waiting. Poe hasn’t been here very often; when his friends were injured in active duty, pilots didn’t really tend to make it back. He knows the space somewhat, having spent time after his escape from the _Finalizer_. He owes Finn for that. He owes Finn for a lot, really. He should have looked for him sooner, he thinks somewhat guiltily, and picks up the pace.

The med-center is on the other side of the base from the Bar, probably intentionally. It’s crowded but quiet. The beeping of machines mingle with the low murmur of calming voices, no one panicking, no one in chaos. A glimmer of worry tugs at his chest when Finn isn’t in the outer ring of beds where the low-injury patients are. No, Poe realizes, of course not. If Finn had just been scratched surely he would have been at the party hours ago. But that means…

He pushes inwards, past the low-injury green-level ward, scans the yellow-ward where he’d spent his time for dehydration, and presses on into the orange. Even through the doorway he catches a glimpse of black skin, and his heart sinks, and he rounds the corner, and -

At the door he stops.

There is a girl sitting by his friend.

He’s never seen her before, this thin wiry scrap of a thing holding his friend’s hand – and they are friends, they have to be after what they lived through together. Poe tries to place her, but his brain’s been knocked around a little too much lately (don’t tell BB-8) and though he’s sure someone mentioned a girl in his hearing, he can’t pinpoint who. She looks pretty focused on Finn, though, and yet a little distant, lost in her own memories, and for a moment he isn’t sure the best thing would be to interrupt.

BB-8 has no such hesitation, and rolls right past Poe’s legs to bump into the girl’s with an excited whistle.

“BB-8!” she exclaims. BB-8 is practically vibrating with joy to see her again, its steady stream of chatter never ceasing even as she bends from her stool to hug it, somewhat fiercely. “I’m alright, I – no, well, we ran into each other actually, Finn came after me, but – “

She’s keeping up with BB-8 easily, if a little bewildered. BB-8 lets out a long, mournful whistle.

“Yes,” the girl agrees, glancing back towards Finn. “He’s – he’s been hurt, but – “

She stops abruptly, because in the movement she’s seen Poe. She’s looking right at him, Poe realizes belatedly, and clears his throat.

“I guess we have a mutual acquaintance,” he says, and aims for a smile.

Her eyes flicker to Finn, and then BB-8. “Guess so.”

Poe hastens to clarify. BB-8 beats him to it, beeping a proud pattern.

“You’re his master?” the girl says, confused, “But – you don’t look dead to me.”

“Ah, no,” he says, and resists the urge to rub at his scalp. The concussion’s healed, the wound scabbed over, but it’s tender if he touches it. “Almost, but not quite.”

Poe probably believes in miracles, but he prefers hard work and stinking good luck. It still turns his stomach to think about. Returning to the Resistance by the skin of his teeth. Waking up on Jakku, bruised but alive. Flying a TIE fighter; stealing a TIE fighter. Finn, taking the cuffs off. Finn, unbelievable.

Finn, now unconscious on the bed before him, from trying to save someone else. From trying to be – no. From being a hero.

It dawns on him then, all at once. He and Finn hadn’t spent much time together before Starkiller, but Poe can recall his friend’s distressed determination very clearly. “You’re the girl he went back for.”

“I am,” she says, lifting her chin. It’s amazing how those two words seem to define her, how she takes them and wraps them around herself like a cloak. “I am.”

“I’m Poe,” he says, remembering his manners. “Poe Dameron.”

She lets go of Finn’s hand long enough to shake his. “Rey.”

“Pleased to meet you. Would you mind if I joined you?”

Rey shakes her head. “No, not at all.”

“Thanks.”

He takes the second stool. Rey makes no move to get up, but she carefully does not hold Finn’s hand again either. Poe understands.

They sit together in awkward silence. The only sound is the beeping of some machine over Finn’s head. It’s not life support, but merely monitoring. That’s good.

Poe wonders what to say to her, this strange girl no one has ever heard of. There are only a handful of beings who know what happened on the surface of the Starkiller. Chewbacca is still on the Millennium Falcon. Nobody has seen Han Solo and since General Organa wasn’t at the party, it’s been assumed they’re off together. That leaves Finn, who clearly isn’t up for answering questions, and the girl Finn was willing to brave everything to save.

Rey.

Rey is watching him. It’s a little unnerving. It’s a quiet ferocity, calm like the center of a storm. She’s either totally in control or used to hiding her insecurities. Poe can relate.

BB-8 beeps meaningfully from the floor, shifting around. Poe can’t remember the last time he saw BB-8 so excited.

“BB-8 says you saved him,” Poe translates, though he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have to. “On Jakku?”

“Couldn’t just let him get sold,” Rey says with a little smile, and pats BB-8 affectionately. The droid coos. Poe didn’t know he could do that. “Or cut up for parts. You wouldn’t have liked that, would you?”

“Cut up for parts?” Poe repeats, over BB-8’s noise of horror.

Rey shrugs. “Scavengers can be vicious. Especially if the price is right.”

“Then I have you to thank,” Poe says fiercely. The image of BB-8 torn apart for scrap, wires spilling out of his belly and his little head riding away separately on a junker’s conveyer belt, is horrid. At his feet BB-8 trembles.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Rey says, startled. The surprise softens the angles of her face, removing the crease of tension between her brows. “It was the right thing to do.”

Now Poe can label BB-8’s excitement as gratitude, the way his droid keeps rolling around Rey’s feet. It’s like Poe’s barely even there. ”Seriously. We’re in your debt. If we can make it up to you, just ask. It’s yours.”

“Anything?” Rey asks. BB-8 warbles in approval.

“Anything,” Poe promises, and the weight of the word is heavy and right. “Now, are you alright? You told BB-8 you weren’t hurt, but the med-droid’s right near – “

“I’m fine,” she says, and there’s the color of surprise in her words but it’s hidden pretty quickly. “Really. General Organa had me checked out.”

She’s sitting a little stiff but not the rigid set of agony. Her clothes aren’t stained with blood, just dirt and grease. There aren’t any visible injuries, but Poe does see for the first time the lightsaber resting in Rey’s lap.

It’s frightening how immediate, startling how fast he remembers. For a second it’s like no time has passed, and he’s standing on Jakku staring at a blue bolt of plasma frozen in midair. He’s back in the cell unable to move, his wrists are trapped and his feet are locked. There’s blood running down his face and sweat dripping into his eyes. There’s a glove and a masked figure boring into his mind, stealing and taking -

BB-8 slams into his shin. Poe jerks out of it with a gasp, blinking the med-center back into focus.

“Are you okay?” Rey asks, with no small amount of concern. BB-8 whirs an identical question. “The med-droid’s just around the corner – “

“I’m fine,” Poe says, willing himself to believe it. He’s sweating, but not bleeding. He’s fine. He’s safe. Rey sits from her half-rise and gestures the med-droid away; Poe pretends not to notice and runs his hand over BB-8’s head, for himself as much as the droid. “I just – I wasn’t expecting to see one of those again for a while, that’s all. Where’d you get it?”

“This?” Rey holds the weapon up carefully. Poe swallows. “It’s not mine. Finn had it when we were fighting Kylo Ren. I was unconscious,” she explains, gripping the lightsaber defensively, unaware, “but I woke up in time to see Finn fighting with it. It went flying when Kylo – when he struck Finn – “

There is a tiny tremble in her fingertips, but the tears in her eyes are not of grief, but anger.

“I – picked it up,” she says, “And I would have killed him, but he got lucky. The planet was imploding, and I had to save Finn. Maybe Ren’s dead now, but Finn isn’t, and for now that’s enough for me.”

Poe decides he likes her.

“I didn’t know Finn knew how to use a lightsaber,” he says.

“I didn’t either,” Rey says. She turns the weapon over in her hands, studying it. Poe forces himself to watch. “This is Luke Skywalker’s. That’s what Maz Kanata told me.”

“There’s a droid here that was Luke’s,” Poe adds, “Have you seen it?“

“I’ve heard of him,” Rey interjects. “R2-D2? He’s real too?”

The force of her excitement surprises him, although he thinks the question a little odd. “He is. Would you like to meet him? He’s kind of in low-power mode, but I could show you if you’d like.”

She has to be on the verge of accepting – but as fast as her enthusiasm comes, it’s gone when she looks back at Finn. The medical machinery beeps again, never ceasing, and all her excitement is tampered down in a tight bottle of restraint. “No, thank you. I don’t want to leave him.”

This, too, Poe understands.

“Finn will be fine,” he says, gently. The med-droid rolls past them, humming to itself. “He’s stable, right? He’s not going anywhere. Nothing can get to him here, he’s perfectly safe. We owe him a lot.”

Rey looks like she wants to believe him, almost desperately. Her fingers twitch where she had almost taken Finn’s hand. “He’s important to you?”

“He is,” Poe insists, and that, too, feels right. “And if he wakes up, we’ll hear about it. Right, AA-4?”

“Certainly, sir,” the med-droid acknowledges, not at all perturbed to be caught eavesdropping. “Shall I find you in the Command Room?”

“Or the mess,” Poe says. He’d thought briefly about taking Rey to meet his friends, too, but most of them are probably still partying or potentially drunk. There’ll be time later. “You hungry?”

He lets her think about it, not pressing. Poe has never minded waiting.

“Maybe a little,” she says, finally, and BB-8 follows when Poe leads Rey out the door.

~*~

When the news breaks the next afternoon, when the word of the cost of victory spreads through the base, Poe goes looking for Rey.

Han Solo is dead, and there’s a part of Poe that _should have known_. Furthermore, Rey’s disappearance isn’t surprising, considering Poe is willing to bet BB-8 she’d been there when Solo was killed. He chalks it up to things he doesn’t know about her, and is almost willing to leave it be. With whispers and speculation flying around every corner, he completely understands retreating.

Poe knows what it is to grieve, but he also knows how hard it is to do it alone.

Despite introducing her to his friends at breakfast, Poe can count on one hand the number of people Rey knows on this planet. There’s General Organa, who nobody wants to disturb right now. Chewbacca, probably likewise. Finn, self-explanatory. BB-8, who can’t go many of the places that a humanoid who wants to be alone could.

That leaves Poe.

So for the second time in twenty-four hours, he combs the Base looking for a newly-acquired friend. Rey is not by Finn’s side, hasn’t been for hours according to the med-droid. She isn’t in the mess, in the Bar, visiting the quartermaster, or hiding in what passes for a library around here. On a whim Poe checks with Control.

“All ships are accounted for, Commander,” the technician on duty says. She’s new herself, only having been on the shift for a week. Poe can’t remember her name, and blames it on the concussion.

“Could she have gone out the back?”

“Doesn’t look like it, sir.” Her fingers fly over the console. “The back doors haven’t opened since Maintenance went through for the trash run.”

Not good. His distress must have been visible because the technician hastily adds, “I’m sure she’s still on Base, sir. If she’s snuck out, no one’s seen her.”

“That’s the point of sneaking,” Poe replies, and excuses himself.

The compound isn’t large and he runs out of places to look. He’s checking the hanger again, although nobody’s seen her out here either. The sun casts long shadows in the space between the fighter ships. It’s in the shadow of the roofline that he spots it: a tiny stretched discrepancy, oddly shaped, oddly…round.

Doubly round. Poe turns in alarm.

BB-8 is perched on the roof of the base, silhouetted against the setting sun with its head tilted up. It doesn’t see him, which means it misses Poe’s frustrated gesture and his sigh.

“Oh you are in so much trouble,” Poe swears under his breath, and, though he briefly contemplates throwing something to get the droid’s attention, sets off to find a ladder.

It’s dark by the time he does get up there and really, he shouldn’t have been surprised.

BB-8 beeps out a happy greeting before he gets too close.

“How the hell did you even get up here?” Poe grumbles at it. BB-8 rolls circles around him as if to prove extreme mobility. With the ease of years’ practice, Poe steps around it, draping the blanket he’d brought over Rey’s shoulders.

Rey jumps, startled, but she can’t shrug it off before Poe’s sitting down next to her, wrapped in his own bright orange blanket that he stole from the med-center. …borrowed.

“I don’t need it,” she protests.

“Then don’t keep it,” he answers. Their legs dangle off the edge of the roof and he holds out a warning hand when BB-8 rolls too close to it. “But I’m cold because someone still has my jacket, and I wanted company.”

It’s too dark to see the look she gives him, but Poe’s pretty sure she’s not convinced (honestly, that one was pretty lame). He stares straight ahead and points out a comet to BB-8. After a long moment, Rey’s small hand grips the blanket closer around her shoulders and she burrows into it, seeking the warmth.

BB-8 beeps plaintively.

“You totally don’t deserve this,” Poe quips, but holds open a corner of his blanket. BB-8 snuggles in happily.

“Not you,” he clarifies to Rey.

“I know,” she says, and even if he can’t see her smile he can hear it in her voice. “I – Poe, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, and holds out the thermos he brought too.

She eyes it skeptically. “I don’t drink.”

“Nothing alcoholic,” he reassures her, “Although I know where to get that if you want. Some people say it helps.”

It hadn’t helped him.

“Mm,” Rey says noncommittally. “What is it?”

“Ever had caf?”

They sit there, cushioned on deep green moss, drinking very weak caf while BB-8 counts shooting stars. She may end up crying, or he might; it’s been a long few days and worlds have changed, around and inside them. If she ever scoots a little closer to him, or he leans his head on hers, neither of them say anything. They simply sit there, shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing a drink and watching the galaxy pass them by.

~*~

The rest of it happens all too fast. Barely the next morning they are standing there, staring in awe at a room and ceiling full of projected stars and a dotted dashed orange line. The Command Room is loud and full of excitement. Poe can pick a few phrases out of the flurry of noise but really he’s just watching Rey, her whole face lit up with the glowing patterns.

“Let’s go,” someone declares, on top of “We’ve found him”, and a very tinny “Oh Master Luke!” and “there’s no time to waste”, and –

“Take the Falcon,” General Organa says. Her voice cuts through the crowd like a knife, even in grief so commanding. Poe marvels at the strength it must have taken her to make that offer, or perhaps she doesn’t want to see a reminder of her husband in the hanger every morning. “Luke will recognize it faster than any other.”

“Can you fly it?” Admiral Ackbar says, and it takes Poe a moment to realize the Admiral was talking to him.

“Uh,” he says eloquently. Later he’ll spend a little while berating himself with Things He Could Have Said, but in the moment he’s struck dumb and can’t figure out why. “Of course I can, but – “

Chewbacca growls something next to him. Poe doesn’t speak Shyriiwook, but someone else does.

“Me?” Rey says into the silence, pure shock. Chewbacca grunts his assent as every head in the room turns towards her.

“Can you fly it?” Ackbar asks her.

“Of course I can,” Rey responds without thinking. “But I – “

“Chewie’s right,” General Organa says, “Han would want you to.”

It is the first time anyone has mentioned General Solo’s name in this room since his death. Rey blushes, just a little. She still hasn’t spoken of what happens, but everyone there knows. Nothing spreads faster on a secret base than secrets.

“Luke would want you to meet him,” General Organa continues gently, “There are things he can teach you, things he can explain. Things no one else can.”

Visibly reluctant, Rey clutches the lightsaber like a lifeline. Poe isn’t sure she’s let go of it once. He’s a little more used to seeing it than a few days ago.

“I didn’t want it,” she says softly.

General Organa lays her hand over Rey’s briefly, and for a moment the two women are holding the lightsaber, the weapon of a myth, together and between them. Poe feels something in him relax, at ease, as things slot into place.

“Then give it back to him,” Leia says.

~*~

“Gonna be alright?” Poe asks her. Rey is packing, or rather, staring at the backpack the Resistance has provided her with bewilderment. There isn’t much (or really anything) to put in it.

“I can look after myself,” Rey reminds him, but he can tell by now the sharp heat behind her words is born of a long-protected defensiveness.

“I know,” he says, “But sometimes it’s not the same thing.”

“Have you been talking to Finn?” she replies without thinking.

 _If only_ , Poe thinks, but Finn has yet to wake up. “Just a thought. You gonna take that?”

Finn’s jacket – Poe’s old jacket – is something the med-droid gave to Rey to look after. She’d mended it, and folded it, and for a second her hand hovers over it.

“It’s Finn’s.”

“Yep,” Poe agrees without a second thought. “He ever tell you how he got it?”

“It was yours. BB-8 told me.”

There goes that entire story. BB-8 chirps cheerfully, the little shit. “You should take it. Finn won’t mind.” And if he did, Poe would give him another. “It might be cold wherever Luke Skywalker is. And it’s cold in space.”

“Space is cold,” Rey agrees full-heartedly, “but this is Finn’s. He only gave it to me for a moment, and he’ll need it when he wakes up.”

She lays the jacket aside, and then she hesitates.

“Will you give it to him?” she asks.

“Me?” Poe asks, genuinely surprised. “Why not you?"

“Because if I’m finding Luke Skywalker I might not be here,” Rey says, as if talking to a two-year-old. “Can you make sure Finn gets it?”

Her sarcasm doesn’t faze him. Poe grins, oddly at ease. “I’ll make sure. Aren’t you going to say goodbye?”

“I don’t like goodbyes.”

BB-8 beeps its opinion loudly. Poe loves when his friend backs him up.

“Then don’t make it one,” Poe agrees, “There are other things you can say. ‘See you later’, ‘til next time’, things like that.”

“Don’t they all mean the same thing?”

BB-8 groans.

“Of course not,” Poe says, “ ‘See you later’ is like – ‘after I do this thing, we’ll meet up and go get drinks.’ ‘Til next time’ means ‘don’t do anything crazy without me around to save your ass’. Totally different than ‘goodbye’.”

She’s smiling, which for Rey counts as full-on laughter. At least he thinks so. Maybe she thinks he’s an idiot. “Really?”

“Really,” Poe promises, and BB-8 beeps its vehement agreement. Rey is looking at the jacket again so she misses when BB-8 flashes Poe a thumbs-up. Poe glares at him. Where did the little droid learn that? Little shit. One-of-a-kind-shit, but still.

“Remind me why I ever missed you,” he tells it, and BB-8 responds in kind by running over his foot. Rey laughs, honest and true as BB-8 hides behind her legs, and in the ensuing tussle-and-chase Poe realizes all of a sudden that missing BB-8 is completely different to how he's going to miss Rey.

~*~

As far as goodbyes go, “we’ll see each other again” isn’t half-bad, Poe thinks, lingering in the doorway as Rey talks to the unconscious Finn. When she presses a very brief kiss to his forehead, he turns away, not wanting her to think he’s watching, not wanting her to see the shit-eating grin on his face. _Oh, Finn. Finn, my man, you’re in trouble._

“You’ll look out for him?” Rey asks, as they walk towards the hanger.

“As long as he doesn’t go around ruining any more jackets,” Poe teases lightly.

“He wouldn’t dare,” Rey counters confidently, and keeps walking.

Ahead of them is the hanger, where Chewie is finishing loading the Falcon. Poe knows there’s a crush of people out there waiting to send the expedition off, and suddenly he has to stop.

“Rey, wait.”  


“What is it?”

They pause just before the hallway ends. She turns to him, lightly confused, and Poe isn’t sure there’s a way to explain. This is his last second with her and for a moment he wants to hug her, because he’s really come to like this scrap of a girl and thinks Rey needs it. There’s something about her that’s like she wasn’t hugged enough as a child, maybe, but then he thinks that’s a really odd thing to think and knows her well enough by now to know she wouldn’t appreciate it. Personal space is huge with his new friend.

He holds out his hand instead.

“I’ll – see you later.”

They shake, and then Rey’s face lights up in a wicked grin.

“’Til we meet again,” she says, and Poe groans. BB-8 flashes her a thumbs-up too.

They walk out into the sunshine together.

~*~

And that’s it, as soon as they’re out Rey barely has time to say anything else before she’s swamped with people. It’s the complete opposite of her arrival. Everyone wants a chance to wish her well now that they know where she’s going. Now that they know who she is.

“Rey?”  


Rey smiles a little at Poe before following the call over to where General Organa is waiting. They look alike, Poe thinks, the General and the Scavenger. But only just.

When the Millennium Falcon lifts off Poe is the first to charge forward, leading the crowd in a raucous cheer as the Falcon turns slowly into position. They cheer until the grand ship has disappeared all at once into hyperspace, with Rey the pilot off on her search for a teacher, for Luke, for herself.

Poe watches even after the crowd has gone and the shadows are forming, the long line of the roof breaking up the cement of the hanger. BB-8 whistles softly at his side.

“C’mon, BB-8,” Poe says, “Let’s go tease Finn about his girlfriend,” and together they head back inside.

 


End file.
